What’s up with Ava Gardner?
The most beautiful animal in the world…
That’s what they called it, yes…
It fascinates me how it fascinated the residents of Tossa de Mar.
He has a statue there.
She left a mark on the people of Tossa, who immortalized her like this.
He shot a film in Tossa…
March-May 1950. It was released in 1951, with the title in Spain of Pandora y el holandés errante, according to a legend.
remind me of her
A curse condemns a Dutch sailor to wander the seas in a ghost ship: he will only be able to land if a woman dies of love for him.
That’s not what Ava Gardner is about…
She is diu Pandora, Pandora Reynolds.
And the man embodied it…
James Mason. In the story, she falls in love. Mason was unsympathetic to Tossa.
How do you know?
The memory remains that he shut himself up at home and avoided fraternizing with anyone.
And Ava Gardner?
On the contrary! He loved going into bars, shops and grocery stores, shopping, meeting, exchanging, joking…
And drink
The witnesses contradict each other on this point: some say that she was drunk in the middle of the afternoon, while others deny it.
Are there photos?
By Manuel Fàbregas, local photographer. She stayed at the Àncora hotel, and then at Can Draper. She was nice to everyone.
More than one would fall in love with her.
Like Pol, fictional character, son of an English cook from a restaurant: I allow myself to narrate from him.
And what does he want to tell us?
I create several love stories.
Frank Sinatra i Ava Gardner.
Love, possessiveness, abuse and jealousy of Mario Cabré, bullfighter, actor and poet.
Which character embodies Pandora?
The gallant Catalan is the torero who stands between James Mason and Ava Gardner.
Did he get to seduce Ava Gardner?
Mario Cabré wrote Ava Gardner long poems in Spanish… which she did not understand. Cabré did not speak English.
Well, it was up to him to talk about it in the film.
It’s boxed, pending not to miss the sentence. As the producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, said: “What if we give the bull his role? I would do much better!” The bull attacks the bullfighter in the square and kills him.
Did the adventure between Ava Gardner and Mario Cabré go far?
He fell in love with her…
Normal.
…And she not so much about him. In any case, Frank Sinatra burst in to stop that beginning of a relationship.
Did they tell Frank Sinatra that something was going on in Tossa…?
Rumors reached him in the United States… and he came flying!
There are photos, we’ve seen them.
In a quiet and romantic Tossa. The local fishermen star in the first scene, speaking in their Catalan…
And what were they called?
“Did you catch a whale?” and other superficialities: the director left the audio in the editing, it must have sounded very exotic to him.
And there Cabré celebrating Ava Gardner.
He read her a poem written by himself every day, feasting her with his lyricism.
A little tacky, maybe…
In her memoirs, Ava Gardner doesn’t speak badly of any man… except for Mario Cabré, who doesn’t sit well.
No? What does it say about him?
That their fling was just one night and that it was a mistake. And that he was like a child.
How do you interpret this contempt?
I think he wrote it to please Frank Sinatra. Mario Cabré was a sweet, tender man, too good a person. Mario Gas, his nephew, confirms this for me. He never spoke ill of Ava Gardner.
I Frank Sinatra, what was he like?
Superb, jealous, very insecure on a personal level. And with two faces: a very good friend to his own, but a very son of a bitch to others. With Ava she practiced both sides.
Did they stay together?
No, but each was for the other. All their lives they were more than friends. Ava listened to Frank’s records, and Frank had more pictures of Ava in his house than of his wife.
Gardner died before Sinatra.
She suffered a stroke, and for his part, he always helped her to the end.
I need to ask what Ava Gardner was like, based on what you’ve researched.
I like men, I like wine… Ava Gardner never married. I stick with what she wrote about herself: “If I were a man, I wouldn’t have married a woman like me.”
